Inocência Mata holds a PhD in Letters from the University of Lisbon, specializing in African Literatures, with postdoctoral studies in Postcolonial Studies (Postcolonial Studies, Identity, Ethnicity, and Globalization, University of California, Berkeley). She is a professor at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Lisbon (FLUL) in the Area of Literatures, Arts, and Cultures and a member of the Centre for Comparative Studies (CEC/FLUL). From 2014 to 2028, she was a visiting professor at the University of Macau, where she was deputy head of the Department of Portuguese and director of the Centre for Luso-Asian Studies. She is a member of several associations, such as the Portuguese Association for Comparative Literature, the Association for the Study of African Literatures (APELA, France), the International Association for African Studies (AFROLIC, Brazil), and the International Association for Social and Human Sciences in Portuguese Language (AILP-csh), being a founding member of the National Union of Writers and Artists of São Tomé and Príncipe (UNEAS), honorary member of the Angolan Writers' Association (UEA), Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences of Lisbon – Letters Class, Corresponding Academic of the Galician Academy of the Portuguese Language, and Corresponding Member of the Angolan Academy of Letters. She is also a member of the Consortium of CORA – Colectivo pela Renovação de África.
She coordinates the following projects based at the MORPHE Group:
- FCT Project A Literatura Colonial Portuguesa: Além da Memória do Império|The Portuguese Colonial Literature: Beyond the Memory of the Empire (2022.06543.PTDC)
- Project GENORE: Gênero, Normatividade, Representações|GENORE: Gender, Normativity, Representations
She is also a consultant for national and international projects, a member of editorial boards of national and international journals, a peer reviewer for articles for journals and events, and a guest professor at many universities, both national and foreign, with contributions to journals and magazines in the specialty. She is the author of essay books in the areas of Portuguese literatures and postcolonial and cultural studies.
She has been awarded several prizes, the most recent being the PRÊMIO FEMINA 2015, the “Diploma de Mérito” in recognition of her contributions to promoting the island of Príncipe worldwide, by the Regional Government of Príncipe (2018), the Lusophony/Education Award (2019), the Honoris Causa Doctorate (2019), by Cypress International Institute University (Lilongwe, Malawi), the Homage to “Women Who Inspire 2022” (by Mén Nón – Associação da Mulher de S. Tomé e Príncipe), the Education Award by CULTURFACE – Associação Cultural para o Desenvolvimento (2022), the Diploma of Honor and Merit – Homage to Angolans Who Distinguished Themselves in Portugal by the League of Africans and Friends of Africa (LIÁFRICA) and the Angolan Culture House Welwitchia (2022).
Selected Publications
- A Casa dos Estudantes do Império e o Lugar da Literatura na Consciencialização Política. Lisboa: UCCLA, 2015.
- A Literatura Africana e a Crítica Pós-colonial (Luanda, 2007/Manaus, 2013, revised and expanded edition)
- Ficção e História na Literatura Angolana (Luanda, 2010/Lisboa, 2011)
- Polifonias Insulares: Cultura e Literatura de São Tomé e Príncipe (Lisboa: 2010)
- Discursos Memorialistas Africanos e a Construção da História (Lisboa: 2018)
- A Rainha Nzinga Mbandi: História, Memória e Mito (Lisboa: 2012)
- Francisco José Tenreiro: As Múltiplas Faces de um Intelectual (Lisboa: 2011)
- The Open Veins of the Postcolonial Afrodescendants and Racisms (Dartmouth, 2022) – with Iolanda Évora (CEsA/ISEG)
- Literatura-Mundo: Perspectivas em Português. Mundos em Português (2 vols.), 2017 with Helena Carvalhão Buescu (FLUL)
- Pós-Colonial e Pós-Colonialismo: Propriedades e Apropriações de Sentido (Rio de Janeiro, 2016) – with Flávio García (UERJ, Brazil)
- When Things Came Together: Studies on Chinua Achebe (Lisboa: 2009) with Don Burness /Franklin Pierce University, USA) and Vicky Hartnack (FLUL)
